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Saturday, 11 August 2012

Wrathall beats Plato to take his first Pole Position

Frank Wrathall narrowly beat Jason Plato to achieve his first BTCC pole position at Snetterton Norfolk.

Frank
Wrathall has spectacularly taken the first pole position of his Dunlop
MSA British Touring Car Championship career at the Snetterton circuit in
Norfolk.

The
25-year-old from Preston achieved pole in a time of 1m57.595s in his
Dynojet Toyota Avensis to pip former double Champion, Oxford’s Jason
Plato in his MG KX Momentum Racing MG6 by just 0.015s.

Motorbase debured the new Focus ST

Wrathall’s
pole is the first for a Toyota driver in the BTCC since 1993 and also a
qualifying record for the championship around the Snetterton track.

Inverness’s
Dave Newsham was also close to pole, just 0.054s away from Wrathall in
third in his Team ES Racing.com Vauxhall Vectra.

An
elated Wrathall said: “That was very close as Jason and I were trading
fastest times but in the end I came out on top. I’d come back into the
pit lane and knew he was out there giving it one final go, but it seems
he made a mistake and went off the track – when the team told me I was
shouting a lot in the car! To beat a driver of his stature makes it all
the more rewarding and I’m delighted.”

Plato
replied: “Congratulations to Frank – it’s always nice to see a young
driver doing well, even if it is at my expense! The important thing is
I’m ahead of the two drivers I’m chasing for the title and from here can
start thinking about taking points back off them.”

And
added Newsham: “Finally the Vectra feels like it did back at the start
of the season when I had three really strong opening events. From what
we’ve seen in the earlier practice sessions our tyre wear rate is also
excellent so I’m hoping for three very strong races tomorrow.”

But
there were major frustrations for the two championship leaders, Honda
Yuasa Racing Team team-mates Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden.
Worcestershire's Neal was a lowly seventh by his standards and Fife's
Shedden 22nd and last after on-going problems with his Civic – which had
suffered a major fire in practice this morning – prevented him from
setting a time.

Elsewhere
Warwickshire's Mat Jackson, another of the championship’s top names,
qualified the Redstone Racing team’s all-new Ford Focus ST an
encouraging 16th fastest on its debut. The Focus, only completed at
7.00am, becomes the seventh different make of car to be built to the
BTCC’s new and much-applauded NGTC regulations…

Meanwhile
Neal will go into tomorrow’s three BTCC races at Snetterton leading the
standings by a point from Shedden. Plato is a further 28 back with 20
awarded for a race win. All the action will be shown live on the ITV4
and ITV4 HD channels plus www.itv.com in a seven-hour show from 11.00am-6.00pm.